Thursday, April 30, 2009

The 2cre8art challenge for April was a beeswax collage. I waited till the very last minute, but that's when I got my inspiration! The 'theme' of this one was love and you had to use an eye. The collage is on a 4x4 canvas. I used a picture of Wiley's eye (my dog) because you will always find true love in the eye's of your pets. I followed the instructions on the challenge pretty closely regarding adhering the background using pieces of paper covered with white tissue paper. I had no tissue paper with gold, but did have some with colored foil confetti. I used Distress Crackle paint on the chipboard heart with wings and stamped it in Archival black ink with the word love. BTW, Distress Crackle paint has a really foul odor when you heat it with an iron to get it to adhere to the beeswax. The Love saying was stamped in Archival black ink on white tissue paper and adhered with the bees wax as well. All in all this was a great deal of fun and I'll probably be creating more in the near future...gotta love beeswax!!

Sunday, April 26, 2009

I spent most of the day cleaning the front porch and painting my studio furniture, but I did take a little time to make a 6x6 card...not for anyone in particular. I made this same scene in my paperbag book that I'm slowly doing and really liked it. So I took a piece of 5x5 white cardstock and ink the background with Dusty Concord, Broken China, Faded Jeans, Pine Needles & Shabby Shutter Distress inks using the ink blending tool. I stamped the sayings and butterflies in black and the florishes in Dusty Concord Distress ink. I cut a piece of green textured cardstock 6x12 and folded to make a 6x6 card base. The scene was run thru the Xyron and attached to the card back. Quick and easy.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

In honor of Earth Day, I made this postcard out of recycled supplies...with a recycle theme. The above logo was today's freebie from Scrap Girls. I chose black and white as the color scheme for the challenge at Lots To Do. The background is an insert from a Cuttlebug folder, the papers are all scraps that were cut on the Cricut and embossed with the Cuttlebug and then inked. The yarn is scraps and the slider/buckle on the yarn is a soda can tab that I embossed black. I got that idea from Ink Stains. The image was downloaded and printed some time ago with a bunch of other images...no wasted paper.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Today, Bev and I got together to do a little crafting. We decided to alter more puzzle pieces. This time I chose to use the really large pieces from a 24-piece set. Bev used the smaller from a 100-piece set. I decided to make mine a coffee theme magnet for the frig.

I painted the pieces with Gesso and let dry. Then covered them with a yellow handmade paper by Paper Reflections using Mod Podge. I used stamps from a coffee-themed set I had to stamp the text and images with Stazon black ink. I colored the cups with Bic permanent markers and edged the whole thing in Tea Dye Distress ink. I added a coat of Mod Podge to seal it all off.

Bev's is not complete yet. The pieces were painted with Gesso then covered with purple tissue paper using Mod Podge. Then stickers of purple flowers were added and a light purple mulberry paper was put around the flower on the right piece. A butterfly was embossed onto a flat piece of tissue paper and adhered with Mod Podge. Bev plans to get a silver chain and connect the butterfly between the two pieces and then decide what else she wants to add.

Friday, April 17, 2009

This is my first stab at an altered puzzle peice. I'm going to turn this piece into a pin/brooch. I used a piece from a child's 100-piece puzzle set. I covered it in gesso and painted it with Tarnished Brass Distress Crackle paint. After the paint dried, I rubbed the piece with Tea Dye Distress Ink to highlight the cracks. I attached my Artchix images, transparency and paper with glossy ModPodge. Once dry, I covered the whole piece with a thin coat of ModPodge. I drilled small holes in the bottom with my Dremel for the string of pink beads and then glued white beads to the piece with E6000.

This was my first time using Distress Crackle paint and I did learn that the thicker the better with this stuff. If you put on a regular paint layer, it won't really crack that much. I ended up using the brush to dab instead of stroke. It self-leveled and had a really cool pattern...so definately dab!

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Here is a simple necklace and earrings that I created using UTEE. I'm going to take the suggestion of the FrugalCrafter and do an update after I've worn it a bit to show how it holds up. I'm pretty rough on things, so it should be a good test of durability. I figure that I will see how it holds up before doing anything more elaborate.

Monday, April 13, 2009

I decided to attempt some techniques with UTEE that I learned from Roni on Inkstains (great blog...highly recommend it. Roni is always doing great demos every week.) Anyway, I watched Roni's video on mixing UTEE colors, got out my clay stape cutters, heated up the Melting Pot (with it balanced on the lid to level it out) and poured in my colors. I decided to use black, gold and pink. I had my craft mat on a tile (so I didn't melt the table) and started pouring...apparently, I used way too much gold...or it floats or something. I cut out my shapes and put the excess back in the pot...you shouldn't do this unless you like the color of mud. I added some more pink thinking, "Pink and mud...that might be a nice color combo"...it's not. I poured out another blob and stamped it with the clay cutter...except I waited too long and the cutter didn't go clear through. Now, one would think that gently rubbing it onto the melting pot to melt down to the cutter would be a good idea...it isn't. The shaped dropped out and started melting...I got it out, but it had some rough edges. Enter another brilliant idea...why not use my heat gun to melt down those rough edges. For those of you that are familiar with UTEE, you know that one of the main uses of a heat gun with UTEE is to remove bubbles. Well, opaque, colored UTEE has bubbles even though you can't see them...and they will rise to the surface when heated. So now, I had to keep melting the piece to smooth over the bubbles which resulted in a bit of serendipity as I ended up liking the 'molten' shape of the piece. Now it's off to fashion some jewelry...

Saturday, April 11, 2009

I made the first Easter card for my mom using a cute bunny stamp from Inkadinkado that I just bought today...and Michaels has started stocking the expanded Tim Holtz line, so I added Distress Stickles (which I used on the Easter eggs), and Grungeboard minis (I used the center of the 6s and 9s for the Easter eggs). I inked up the board of the white card stock with Worn Lipstick Distress Ink and attached a piece of pattern paper. I stamped the bunny on light green cardstock with Timber Brown Stazon Ink and 'watercolored' it with Distress Ink then inked the edges with Shabby Shutters and Pine Needles Distress Ink. The text is stamped with individual letters and inks around the edges. I inked the Easter eggs with Distress inks and coated them with Distress Stickles.

I made this Easter card for my husband a couple months ago at a friend's craft party. The bunny is stamped then colored with marker on light green cardstock. The edges were inked and the print was adhered to another peice of light green cardstock that had been embossed with the Textile folder in the Cuttlebug and inks.

My step-father's birthday was the 10th, but we are celebrating when we go there on Easter. I made him this card with some great Tim Holtz stamps (I love his stuff!). The vintage car and the 'Enjoy the Journey' text is inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink then embossed with Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Powder. I left the corner florishes just inked in Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I then inked the edges and adhered them to a brown card base. I ran a piece of brown ribbon across the center. I stamped A and L in Vintage Photo Distress Ink onto a piece of cardstock that I had inked with Scattered Straw Distress Ink and attached them to the ribbon section. Al turns 69 this year, so I took the Grungeboard numbers, inked them with Vintage Photo Distress ink and then covered them with Vintage Photo Distress Stickles and adhered them to the card.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

This week we had a surprise birthday party for my friend, Jill...totally surprised her, which is not easy to do.

I made her a birthday card using a tintype technique that I found in the book, "Vintage Greeting Cards" by Mary Jo McGraw. I found a picture I liked of Jill, converted it to black and white and printed it on a color laser printer (ink jet won't work so well for this). Mix Omnigell with some silver pigment powder and brush onto the photo horizontally...let dry. Then brush vertically...let dry. Brush diagonally...let dry. Cut the photo to size and soak in water. Gently rub off the paper...there you have it. I added a coat of gloss Mod-Podge because I wanted a shiny surface, but it's not necessary. The frame is craft metal that I ran thru the Cuttlebug with the Textile folder. I cut the center out in an X and folded the sections back. I painted it with gold Paint Dabbers. I cut a tag out of craft metal and stamped in Happy Birthday and some edge detail then colored it with alcohol inks (I forgot which now...sorry) then attached it with a gold brad. The lace is vintage that I dyed with walnut ink, ran a stitch across the bottom edge and pulled it up to make the little 'fan'. The faux game piece is made from copper polymer clay with a coat of gold acrylic paint to bring out the 'J'. The small flowers are made from gold UTEE that was pour into a polymer mold I made of a button. The background of the card was colored with Distress Inks in Vintage Photo, Tea Dye and Worn Lipstick.